well, harold coe says, what a disgrace. how can the united states be a world leader on women's rights and not sign this treaty? well, let's take a look. what would radification mean? we don't have to guess what ratification means. the american bar association has written a book-length report, 200 pages, explaining exactly what american compliance would mean. the aba report is based on the work of the u.n. monitoring committees. they go to the countries when they ratify the treaty. so when they went to britain or australia or canada, they wrote a report. what were they telling these countries to do, how would you follow the treaty? well, the aba report opposes thousands of questions, all of them potential lawsuits. the aba claims, first of all, it's not about equality under the law, it's about de facto equality; that is, equality of result, statistical equality. the aba states gender quotas are not voluntary, it creates an obligation for a quota system. so i'm just going to run through a few of these questions from the ameri